Adirondack chairs, Hong Kong Santa Delivers

I decided to Build these Adirondack chairs, as it was late in the year thought it apt to make it a Christmas present for my Love. I have been seeing these chairs in the US a lot recently and they are lovely looking chairs and also extremely comfortable.

The Timber I ended up using was some sort of Indonesian Hardwood, I really not sure of the exact species and in actual fact I thought it to be technically a hard Softwood as opposed to a soft Hardwood. (if anyone can help me with the species I would be interested). Good quality dressed timber very hard to get here in Hong Kong, and if anyone has read my other forum topics they will see that at one point I was trying to source timber from Canada, (all too too hard that was)

Picture number 1.

This is the finished product obviously and wrapped in Pink Ribbon for Christmas day.The plans I used for the chairs are the popular mechanics plans with a couple of very very minor changes.The plans that are readily available on internet are very very accurate if followed closely.

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My method was to make the templates out of 6mm ply wood, the templates cut out carefully with a jigsaw and planned and sanded to get the accurate finished template piece.Then with my actual wood pieces I cut them out roughly with a jig saw and clamped the templates to the piece. Using a guide wheel that ran along the template I trimmed them off with this hand held router. As there was lots of clamping it became very labor intensive but my finished pieces came out nice and accurate.

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With all the pieces cut out carefully before assembly I gave them their first coat of decking oil, Ronseal Decking Oil to be exact. The elements are harsh here in Hong Kong with lots of Acid Rain, Choosing the best coating for the chairs was a challenge and hope I got it right with the decking oil.

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To get the chairs assembled in square and without twisting I moved the operation inside to our old dining table. First I made the backs of the chairs separately. then screwed the fully assembled back pieces to the main styles of the chairs. The screws I ended up using are square drive Silicone Bronze wood screws. lots and lots of re chucking of drill bits and counter sinkers, labor intensive. The screws were very soft and easy to snap so drilling had to be accurate. Um at around 1 dollar US per screw I am told they will never ever rust. Incidentally I assembled the small table first in order to get a good feel for the screws.

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The seat slats go on here and chair is ready for the armrests. Santa’s helper and eventual recipient carefully inspecting the chairs as we go.

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Santa having a rest and a cold beer. One of the changes to the Popular mechanics plan that I made was not to spoil the arm rests with face screws. I simply clamped and glued my armrests together with the buttresses. I did however put a horizontal bolt through the arm rest at the back. The glue may fail in the future and if so I will simply add some screws later. I also made my armrests 50 mm longer than the plan and in hindsight I should have made them 100mm longer.

So that’s my Adirondack project complete, thanks for reading, what’s next I wonder?

Oh I know the design well. They are classic and you certainly did the design justice in the execution. Then you paid the design homage. It s what they were meant for ;)

Thanks again Bill, actually we experiencing horrible weather here in HK at the moment, Lovie (The Mrs) suggested that we better cover the chairs up. just yesterday we got them custom made covers so they will last a few extra years.I figured they deserved that as well.

The wood actually looks like white oak. Don t know if there s any white oak in Indonesia, but the grain and coloration certainly look like it.

Always wanted to visit HK. Maybe someday.

- builtinbkyn

I have since found out that the wood is Not from Indonesia , Just yesterday I had a local Chinese tell me it was Ash from Taiwan, personally I don’t think it is Ash so I plan to go back to the original supplier to get the wood species written in Chinese then I can get it translated my self. So we will wait and see.